Credits

Plot Information for Pruul

Seven children are destined to save Pruul and shake the traditions of the territory to their very core. In response, factions have broken the peace of a previously unified territory and violence has erupted across the dessert. It is a battle between the past and the future, the young and the old, and blood won’t stop seeping into the sand.

THE MOTHERThe ruler of Pruul is a Priestess Queen. A natural Priestess Queen is preferred, but a Queen who is trained as a Priestess is acceptable.

The Mother being a Priestess Queen is very important, because of the aspects that these castes represent. The Priestess absolves sins and offers devotion to the Darkness, connecting to the inimitable female which governs all. She governs the trials that usher strong males into adulthood, and stands as the gateway between stages of life. The Queen is the land; she gives it strength, reinforces the powers within it, and makes survival possible in the vast empty deserts. It is the Queen’s influence that gives rise to oases and the desert life by which nomadic tribes make their living. Both of these castes together have a holy mystique, one that has proven to be the only thing which can hold the many Clans and Tribes together.

BLACK WIDOWSThey are charged with directing Pruul along a path of stability and prosperity, due to their closer ties to the Darkness than their Sisters. In the course of this, they are often found advising tribal leaders or businessmen; it’s said that only a fool ignores the council of a Black Widow. Particular attention is given to their abilities to detect falsehood and to see visions of the future. Certain poisons for creating an altered state of mind (hyper-perceptive, hyper-relaxed, etc) are commonly used by the Coven. They work closely with the Priestesses to sniff out potential rebellions, which they might quash, report, or encourage, depending upon their visions. Their Coven Head is known among non-Black Widows as the Sister Superior--were the Queen of Pruul to be a Black Widow Priestess Queen, she would be the Mother Superior.

PRIESTESSESPriestesses deal closely with the Black Widows, and assist with ensuring that the proper unions are made between people. They are to the common populace what the Black Widows are to the leadership of the territory, but they are by no means small-scale. More than their responsibilities to protect and guide their people, they are also the protectors of water. Priestesses guard oases, and are trained in hand-to-hand combat to defend their sanctuaries from the marauders who might try to destroy water sources. They are often fearsome warriors, and no one would fight a Priestess if they had the choice. They also conduct the trials by which a boy of the tribe becomes a man, which are done before Offerings. Priestesses officiate tribal ceremonies, especially the funerals where the dead are relieved of their body’s water thanks to highly specialized and secret Craft. They are charged with using their religion to keep the masses peaceful, to socialize them into a useful collection of people who all worked together towards the same goal. They are traditionally led by the Priestess Queen.

SHARED TRAITS OF BLACK WIDOWS AND PRIESTESSESPriestesses and Black Widows of Pruul are trained in a mental art which grants the vast majority of them an amazing mental austerity, which most believe to grant them an unrelenting belief and serenity. In Priestesses, this distances them from the occasional hypocrisy in their order. In Black Widows, this helps them toe the line between this world and the Twisted Kingdom. Landens in Pruul tend to refer to the Black Widows and Priestesses as a single group known as the “Sayyadina”. Because Black Widows and Priestesses are part of the same body in Pruulian society, they hold the same rank by Protocol: a step below Queens and a half step above Warlord Princes.